It's Time For Florida To Get Serious

After Dining On Cupcakes, The No. 6 Gators Open Sec Play With A Road Game At Once-beaten Vanderbilt.

January 5, 2000|By Chris Harry of The Sentinel Staff

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - The University of Florida's record is 11-1, the best 12-game start in school history.

How impressive is that? Well, consider that the sixth-ranked Gators haven't defeated a team rated in the top 100 of the latest Ratings Percentage Index surveys and have a strength of schedule that ranks 233rd among 318 Division I teams.

No current Top 25 team has had it easier.

All that changes starting tonight when UF opens the Southeastern Conference season with a trip to Vanderbilt (9-1), where the Gators won only once in the 1990s. Florida then heads to Mississippi to face another once-beaten opponent Saturday. Gators Coach Billy Donovan is winless in three cracks at the Rebels.

Home games against Louisiana State and Tennessee follow - two teams with a combined one loss - then it's off to Alabama (UF has not won there since '88), then on to DePaul for a tough, non-conference, nationally televised showdown.

And so on.

``We've been building toward the SEC season,'' forward Mike Miller said. ``It's going to be packed again. The SEC is loaded, and we're ready to get in the thick of it.''

They should be. After feasting on a shameful slate featuring the likes of New Hampshire, Florida A&M, High Point and Virginia Military - the average margin of victory in those games was 42.1 points - the Gators will be facing not only more formidable competition but also playing true road games for the first time this season. Thus far, all games away from the O'Connell Center have been at neutral sites.

Donovan and his staff weren't foolish enough to build up the team's pre-conference schedule as difficult. Instead, they had the Gators focus on the various styles of play thrown at them.

There were many.

``We faced just about every kind,'' Donovan said.

Purdue, which handed UF its lone defeat, and North Carolina Wilmington were true halfcourt teams. Georgetown and Bethune-Cookman tried to run. New Hampshire was an all-out pressing team. Utah State dictated pace by holding the ball for 20 seconds, then getting into its offense.

``We've seen it all,'' Donovan said. ``As we move on in the SEC, those teams we're going to play are going to be better talentwise than the ones we've played, but it's still good to play against a bunch of different styles. We've gotten a lot out of these games.''

A lot more, said sophomore point guard Teddy Dupay, then some might think.

``It may not have said `Duke' or `Kentucky' on their chests, but we've played three or four teams that were very good,'' said Dupay, suggesting that B-CC and UNC Wilmington will challenge for their respective conference's NCAA bids. ``They may not be marquee names, but they weren't as easy they seemed.''